Save What is in Destroying
by Katharos
Summary: A look into the minf of Lord Voldemort as he watches his followers torment a Muggle Family. Refrences to Milton. Very strange and slightly surreal. Read Warnings!


Departure from my usual

WARNING: Freaky stuff, some references to rape though not explicit.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, or Voldemort, they belong to the absolutely wonderful J K Rowling. I don't own Milton either, if I had written it, it wouldn't be so sexist!

The orange and red flames from the burning house flick greedily up against the darkened sky. This far from towns and cities, the night's brilliance is undimmed and the stars gleam in all their glory down on this burning home. Screams echo through the night air, sharp and shrill against the crackling of the inferno their owners dwelling has become. Sobs and pleading from the man's wife and children sound a fitting counterpoint to his pain. The laughter of my Deatheaters roil the night air filled with the stench of wood smoke and roasting flesh, their joy at the destruction wrought by their hands a pale reflection to what burns in my breast on occasions such as these.

Seldom will I dirty my hands by sharing in their revels, held to honour me – no. I take up the craft of pain and shame and fear only when there is special need – or desire. Exorcising their rage on nameless, faceless Muggles may satisfy my followers' needs, but when I partake of such pleasures, I find them all the sweeter when they are personal, intimate. When I may look into my victim's eyes and know them, and have them know me. My followers may find joy in the uncomprehending anguish of victims ignorant of whence their doom comes, but my taste for such things were born when I stared into the eyes of he who was my father in flesh and blood and nothing more, and had him know me for who I was, the first time he had ever deigned to look upon his son. That dawn of realisation in his eyes, of terror, as my magic stole his life…never yet have I found any darkened deed to match the thrill of patricide.

The man's screams have faded to loud sobs, and the children's cries to pitiful whimpers, but the woman's voice has risen to take their place, with screams to rend the air full of defiance and rage and terror, and still my Deatheater's laughter roils out across the dark night as her home burns. I listen, unmoving and unmoved seeming, but a terrible joy fills me up, as the notes of my destroying fill the night. I have never been a one to slake my lust in a Muggle woman's body, even if this form new crafted of mine could stir swiftly to burn. Such a thing is half akin to bestiality. Yet among my followers there are those who prefer to take their pleasure in another's unwilling form, and I do not prevent them. Their victim's shame and fear is a heady drink to me. 

The death cries of the children pierce the night, accompanied by their father's horror stricken cries and their mother's broken sobs, and joyous, darkling flames curl through the veins of my spell born frame. Never have I found a joy to equal the precious moments of my Father's death. Yet often in these later years of mine, I find a yearning in me, that I had not been so hasty in my younger days. Scarce satisfaction it seems now, the brief and painless death I granted him. I long now to come to him again, with skills and knowledge won as I have grown. But oft times now this thought into my mind intrudes; have I been granted chance to live my joy again?

The Muggle father husband no longer screams. Instead, against a background of my follower's jeers, and the hopeless sobbing of his wife, and the silence of his children, in broken, stumbling, halting words, he prays to his God. His foolish, futile words find entrance to my mind and I find myself recalling other words. Few Muggles there have been who might be seen as Men, and among these oft are writers. As if, their magic failing to be in other form expressed, find its voice in words. So it seems to me with one who was of the Devil's party. Milton, who shaped his words in the darkness of night and the darkness of blindness, and whose words, placed in the mouth of Satan, find resonance now in me. 'Save what is in destroying, other joy To me is lost.' And so it seems to me, for little else now can kindle in me this emotion joy, except destruction, and the fear and pain I bring. Since I raised myself from that black cauldron and stood once more upon the grave of my Father, new clothed in flesh, this has found truth in me.

The woman's death sighs now whisper in the night, and still the man stumbles through his futile, fruitless pleas to a God who will not heed. But what moments before I had found my only source of joy, did not now impinge upon me, as I turned over in my mind a thought, not new, for often it had visited me of late. To recreate the joy I had once found as a young boy in my Father's death, but now to linger over it, and savour, as over mature wine, and bring to bear all my time taught skills… For do I now not have another father? Reborn I was of his blood, his face the first I saw when rising from my cauldron-womb. And yet, is he not also my son? For what other Father has he but I, I who set him on the orphaned path he treads, I who nurtured him and tutored him in the cruel lessons life brings? And who now, as I once was, is set on the path of patricide? My Father. My Son…

The silence draws me from my thoughts. The flames that so greedily consumed the rural Muggle house have died to sullen, ember glow, and the cries of those who once there lived have died to ever-silence. But the laughter of my Death Eaters, the expression of the joy they share with me has fallen silent, and nervous looks my way direct. Silent and soundless I move to my appointed proxy's side. And meet the nervous eyes that gaze through the eyeholes of his black mask, of which I have no need. Silent, his gaze he directs to the body lying sprawled on blood soaked glass, a puppet with it strings cut by sharp, subtle knife. Silent, my gaze follows his, and shock gives a jolt within me, and unease stirs in his wake. His body, a canvas on which my Deatheater's have accomplished with great skill their art, in tortured pose lies twisted. But on his face, though slit wide open is his cheek by knife well wielded, glows peace and rapture, joy. A small smile curves his lips, and his eyes stare forward, unafraid in joy, into whatever death may bring. 

All joy is gone from within me, all my pleasure in destroying lost as I step back, my eyes stern sweeping over my followers, stilling the whispers ere formed. 'We did not kill him.' My wand of graveyard wood uplifted I cast my sign into the sky, so all men might know where I have been. And by the command in eye and body, I bring my followers from this place.

Far away from that scene of terror, under a night sky dimmed by city lights, a boy wakes in a narrow bed, one hand pressed firm to the scar that pains him, trembles running through his thin frame. A snowy owl perched upon a desk ruffles her soft feathers and hoots softly in concern. 

The boy forces himself to move from his bed, stumbling over to the desk, where parchment and quill is laid ready. The owl flutters her wings, gliding softly to the boys shoulder, pressing her downy feathers against his cold cheek as the quill scritch-scratches across the page of parchment. Finished, the boy blows gently on the ink to dry it, rolls the parchment up, and presents it to the hovering snowy owl. No spoken instructions are required, as with one last look of concern from round, golden eyes, the snowy owl takes flight out of the open window.

Still silently, still shaking, the boy stumbles his way across to the bookshelf, lined with books that have never been read. The boy selects one, provided by some well meaning relations for the boy's cousin, whose height of reading ability stretches to the Beano.

Still slightly uncoordinated by the shivers racking his frame, the boy returns to his narrow bed, opening the hard backed book upon his lap. Unerringly, his eyes searches for, and finds, these lines which kindle a glow of hope inside his heart.

So much hath Hell debas'd, and pain 

Infeebl'd me, to what I was in Heav'n

Alright. I suppose that was weird and freaky and disturbing, and I did feel dirty after writing some of it. However, I did try to convey some sense of hope with the Muggle man's death, and the lines at the end. They are quoted from Milton's Paradise Lost, and the speaker is Satan. I did just want to clear up a few points that might be confusing.

When Voldemort says that Milton 'was of the Devil's party' this is actually a quote from a critic. (Don't sue me!)

'Wand of Graveyard wood.' Is a reference to the fact that Voldemort's wand is made of Yew, which traditionally grows in graveyards.

I just want to underline something. Voldemort is petrified of Death. He will do anything to avoid it, including going through debilitating rituals in search of immortality. However, this muggle man, who Voldemort sees as only slightly above an animal, is unafraid of death. I always get annoyed when Muggles are perceived as lesser because they don't have magic in fics.

I've just had an exam today which was on Paradise Lost, which is actually where this story springs from – that quote just made me think of Voldemort! For anyone who reads my other story, Dark Side of the Moon' (Werewolf!Harry) I have not abandoned it, and I should actually have some free time to write the next chapter now – I just wanted to get this out of my system. I'm also very nervous about the next scene – I'm afraid the confrontation with Voldemort will just come out cheesy and a cliché.

So. Any and all comments are welcome, especial on the language and style I have used – its something of an experiment and is similar to Milton's (I hope!)

Katharos


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